All 3d games freezing Windows randomly, what is the problem?

Kris1337 · 15 Sep 2011 at 09:01

First post is first.

Gonna start out with my specs:

Phenom x4 965 BE,
4GB Kingston 1333mhz ram,
Sapphire 6850 1GB,
ASUS M4A87TD EVO
Corsair VX550W
Lian Li PC60 Plus

I had done some slight overclocking before which was all stable and tested, but when this started to occur - I dropped everything to stock and the problem persists.

Every time I launch a 3d game, I can play fine for about 5minutes-2hours(completely randomly), and then suddenly I would get a freeze, and the graphics would go weird for a moment - not like proper artifacts, but like dislocated GUI elements.

Sometimes it would freeze so that I need to hold the power button, sometimes it would just throw me back in Windows with the ''program stopped responding'' error. When checking the details - it is always a random dll failing (physxcore.dll, mscrvt.dll, x, x). If this happens, my Windows seems to completely crash aswell in the sense that it is not usable anymore - Skype crashes with a random error, I get dislocated Windows GUI, flash crashes in chrome, steam crashes, etc - when I restart the system - it works fine again not even with a slightest hiccup.

Temperatures seem to be completely fine,

Things Ive tried so far:

Testing VGA with Furmark - gave no errors whatsoever, max temp 81C,

Reinstalling VGA drivers,

Dropping the OC to stock,

Tried to swap out 1 stick of ram - It made the freezes much more often, more in the 5 minute range. Thought maybe the one that I left in the PC was bad, swapped the other one - had the same effect. Thought both maybe bad -> swapped a brand new G.Skill Ripjaw in there - still freezes in the 5min range

Will post voltages and temps later today, since I am at work atm..
Gonna try swapping VGA and PSU aswell, I got extra ones from another PC.

Any ideas/suggestions? :S

rajravat · 15 Sep 2011 at 09:27

if you run prime95 for a while does your computer freeze? if your pc is stable when stressing individual components (furmark/prime95) then it could be some kind of driver issue, i would try and re-install windows and check again before dropping any more money

Kris1337 · 15 Sep 2011 at 10:07

Actually haven't Prime95'd it recently, feel stupid now asking before doing so..

Gonna do some component swapping and priming later and will post anything that could be relevant. Thanks

PS, Reinstalling is a b***h to do, so first Ill try everything else I can!

hlxbravo · 15 Sep 2011 at 10:12

Sounds mightily similar to the problem I had recently, constant lockups, crashing to desktop or just rebooting...turned out it was my PSU as I received a call off the wife yesterday saying that it wouldn't, and still won't, come on. As you say, you have a spare so that would be my next step I think.

olivier renault · 15 Sep 2011 at 10:26

First sounded like a memory issue, then maybe a memory controller issue? Run memtest overnight. Try moving your DIMMs to the secondary channel on the board. Loosen the timings.

If memory OK, can also...

Launch HWmonitor and all the monitoring software you can in the background (NVidia has a specific monitoring tool I forgot about, MSI as some tools as well), launch games in windowed mode. Keep an eye on the temps, fan speeds, voltages.

Try running a graphics bench for a few hours (Heaven, 3D mark...).

Then running Prime95 for a few hours.

Then both at the same time for an hour. Will put the PSU to the test.

Could be CPU, could be sound, could be GPU, could be memory, could be unclean drivers, could be hard drive... could be anything!

BTW, I had a similar problems in Source games, I had to disable multicore rendering. But yours sounds more like an hardware issue. or malware? You running anti viruses?

olivier renault · 15 Sep 2011 at 10:27

rajravat said:
if you run prime95 for a while does your computer freeze? if your pc is stable when stressing individual components (furmark/prime95) then it could be some kind of driver issue, i would try and re-install windows and check again before dropping any more money

AFAIK Prime95 doesn't really stress the memory. Would be good to run memtest to see if it's the mem sticks / memory controller.

Kris1337 · 15 Sep 2011 at 20:45

Okay, loading bios defaults worked, probably there was something set that did that(forgot to switch it off when dropping the OC).

Theres another thing now though, my voltage defaults to 1.4, but I have the 125W chip that should default at 1.375. Not that it botters me, but still